"It is our intention to operate the flight non-stop," says a United spokesman.

That's why flight attendants may be telling passengers they are hallucinating when the Boeing 747 they are on stops for fuel in Copenhagen on the return flight to Chicago.

"That's really not a runway and that's really not a fuel truck and that's really not the ground," the flight attendants likely will be saying softly in Swedish.

It's a definition debate the airline's flight attendants started in apparent retaliation over the airline's failure to directly inform them that it was canceling the Los Angeles to Osaka, Japan, flight.

The debate about whether the flight is non-stop or not will become moot if the Russians approve plans for a new air traffic route that allows planes to fly over the North Pole from Chicago, across eastern Russia, through China and into India.

"If we get approval to fly that route, then the flight will be non-stop," said the United spokesman.

And besides, unless an airline boards passengers or lets passengers get off when it stops, it is still considered non-stop, the spokesman said.

Flights to China: A new aviation treaty between the U.S. and China was one of the few accomplishments announced after last week's conclusion of trade talks between the U.S. and China, which had been seeking membership in the World Trade Organization.

After all, the major U.S. airlines that already were serving China wanted to expand their service, and other carriers were chomping at the bit to get into the world's most populous nation.

Among the three incumbent carriers serving China, only United has raised its hand indicating it wants additional flights. It is seeking permission to begin service between Chicago and Shanghai.

Federal Express Corp. and Northwest Airlines were so eager to add flights that on Wednesday the U.S. Transportation Department asked whether they also wanted a chance to add flights.

It makes you wonder whether the new treaty--which allows U.S. carriers to increase the number of cities they serve to five from three and forbids other carriers from adding service until 2001--was such a good deal.

Airline CEOs veto Peotone: It's not often the chief executives of the nation's 21 largest airlines agree on anything, let alone agree to sign the same letter, because of the competitive juices that flow through their veins.

But Gov. George Ryan, who won't let go of his support for a new airport in far south suburban Peotone, received a letter from the 21 CEOs that would be a collector's item if it weren't so important.

The airline execs, who must decide whether they will order their airlines to serve the new airport that Ryan wants built, said in no uncertain terms that they don't need another airport in the Chicago region.

And the execs cite two examples that Ryan and his staff need to remember. One, the $330 million, taxpayer-funded Mid America Airport in Mascoutah, Ill., which is 20 miles east of St. Louis. It is one with which Ryan is personally familiar. His plan for Peotone is a carbon copy of Mid America.

Critics of the airport, which has yet to see a commercial flight more than a year after its opening, call it one of the biggest taxpayer fleecings in recent years.

The other example cited is the Mirabel International Airport outside Montreal. Like Peotone, it's an airport 40 miles from downtown. Despite airline protests, however, Montreal and Quebec officials ordered the airlines to move their operations to the new airport when it opened in the mid-1980s.

Last year, the airport was closed. Residents voted with their feet against trekking 40 miles whenever they wanted to go somewhere.